Hi Mark and Linzi, Nice tour as always. We are going on the Niew Amsterdam on the 28th of this month and we took advantage of the 1.00 deposit as well. We've booked a 17 day from Vancouver to Hawaii back to Vancouver on the Koningsdam for next April. Take care. Cheers, Steve
Hi Steve Lovely to hear from you. You can’t beat a 1.00 deposit for making impulsive decisions 😂 Oh that 17 day one sounds like bliss. Let us know how Nieuw Amsterdam goes. We can’t wait to try it ourself properly. Linzi and Mark
We got engaged aboard Nieuw Statendam in the Caribbean a couple of years ago! It was our absolute favorite of all our cruises. We’ve been on Holland, Princess, and Cunard, and this was our favorite, hands down. The music is amazing, and the food was well beyond Princess and Cunard. It also doesn’t skew as old as folks think. We’re in our 40s and there were plenty of folks in their 20s and 30s on our cruise, along with 40s and above. We found the crowd on the QM2 and the activities and such to skew far older than HAL. Hope you will book on HAL and have a great time! We’re going to Alaska on the Koningsdam in 2025. We find we get better deals on HAL with their Have-it-All package than on other premium lines, too!
Just heard your discussion on Club Orange, too. We LOVE Club Orange! Priority boarding and tendering, and you also get to upgrade your cabin within the same category (i.e. you pay for an obstructed balcony and then upgrade to a much nicer unobstructed balcony). You book it ahead of time. We use a super helpful HAL Personal Cruise Consultant and she handles it all for us when we book!
Thank you both so much. The music venues and bars around it (especially the wake pool one) were fantastic and we were sold on it straight away. So much so, that we genuinely booked to go on HAL less than ten minutes after recording the video (while it was still exporting before uploading to UA-cam). We can't wait and with the Have It All Package included and a bit of onboard credit and shore excursion credit, it is a fantastic deal.
We will absolutely be booking Club Orange. We didn't know about the cabin upgrade (within category), what a nice perk that is. We just liked the idea of that extra choice for breakfast and dinner that's a bit quieter.
@@SuiteNatured Yay!!! Hope you have a blast. Be sure to google club orange and look at the list you’ll find of what all it includes. We found we had to ask for lots of the benefits - they don’t always just offer them up - so being familiar with what you’re supposed to get is important.
Wonderful ship tour! Can't wait to see how Queen Anne compares in terms of design and layout. My only quibble with the Nieuw Statendam design would be those large, rounded pillars in the main dining room. What on earth?! It looks like your walking down the stairs into a giant rib cage. Like something out of the American cartoon The Flintsones (Yabba Dabba Doo!) Still, I would happily sail on her tomorrow!
That two person cocktail was called the Pirate’s Punch on the Eurodam during our Caribbean cruise last month. My wife says it’s the best deal on the ship!
It certainly was, and it was nearly enough by itself to persuade us to book a cruise with HAL.🤣 Completely agree on value $19 for that huge drink, absolutely bargain, and it was really tasty too.
Was considering Holland America for 2025 for Iceland so this has been very timely. It has echos of Cunard, we normally cruise Grills on Cunard, but the Club Orange restaurant did not look a match for the Grills dining experience. You are always both so enthusiastic about your trips, which is great to watch. Can I just remind Lindsay that she said she would do a video explaining what the dress code really means by cruise line for formal vs informal?
Hi Andrea, We haven't forgotten the formal vs informal, we will be putting it together very soon, either just before we go on our Alaska cruise at beginning of June, or when we come back. Thank you for the lovely comment too, and we are glad the HAL tour was timely, we were persuaded straight away to booking a cruise after this and with the All In package (drinks, dining, wifi and shore exc money too) it was really good value, and we can't wait to get on it early next year. Club Orange looked great, very different to Grills, and Cunard in full, but does have some other nice benefits included (early tender access and such), so it will obviously be our first experience of it, but we will let you know what we think. Have a lovely weekend Linzi & Mark
Nice ship but seems to be an older crowd on Holland America from what I have read. Looks like a nice enough ship but the design doesn't appeal to us. We just got off Iona yesterday which has a nice design but wasn't our crowd and was far too busy. We have 3 Celebrity cruises booked and our first Princess and Azamara cruises booked foe next year. Looking to try Virgin and maybe a Royal one. Good to see you in the news last week Mark championing Bradford against all the moaners. Cant wait to see Bradford Live open soon!
The ship was lovely Peter and it was definitely an older crowd left on board in Dover but when we were getting off the queue to get back on was a massive mixture from early 20s to 70s, fairly equally split. We’d guess it was a similar demographic to what we’d seen on Apex or Sun Princess. Oh can’t wait to hear what you thing of your cruises next year especially Azamara. We hear there’s a great Royal cruise on 22nd September from Southampton next year 😂 Mark will always champion Bradford. He is so passionate about his home city and wherever we live he’ll always be a Bradfordian 🤣
We enjoyed your video. Thanks! We have purchased Club Orange for all of our Holland cruises. They sell a limited number of spots and usually sell out fairly quickly, although sometimes you can get lucky. Highly recommend it.
Thank you Susan, we have only heard great things about Club Orange, it had sold out before we even booked our cruise, but we are top of the wait list, so fingers crossed we get to give it a try.
![[UA] NAVI vs MOUZ | BO5 | IEM Rio 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CMBYk0cbGoA/mqdefault.jpg)
Great tour as ever - lovely ship and the food options look really good. Pool area looked great as well
Thank you guys, we can't wait to try Holland properly next year.
Excellent. Well done video. Thanks.
Thank you Cruise Crazy❤️
Hi Mark and Linzi,
Nice tour as always. We are going on the Niew Amsterdam on the 28th of this month and we took advantage of the 1.00 deposit as well. We've booked a 17 day from Vancouver to Hawaii back to Vancouver on the Koningsdam for next April. Take care.
Cheers,
Steve
Hi Steve
Lovely to hear from you. You can’t beat a 1.00 deposit for making impulsive decisions 😂
Oh that 17 day one sounds like bliss. Let us know how Nieuw Amsterdam goes. We can’t wait to try it ourself properly.
Linzi and Mark
Hello you two. Shucks, I just missed your live stream ! I thought I would be able to catch the final half hour of it, lol. Warm cheers ! Denise
No live stream this week Denise. It's next Sunday 😂 🥂
We got engaged aboard Nieuw Statendam in the Caribbean a couple of years ago! It was our absolute favorite of all our cruises. We’ve been on Holland, Princess, and Cunard, and this was our favorite, hands down. The music is amazing, and the food was well beyond Princess and Cunard. It also doesn’t skew as old as folks think. We’re in our 40s and there were plenty of folks in their 20s and 30s on our cruise, along with 40s and above. We found the crowd on the QM2 and the activities and such to skew far older than HAL. Hope you will book on HAL and have a great time! We’re going to Alaska on the Koningsdam in 2025. We find we get better deals on HAL with their Have-it-All package than on other premium lines, too!
Just heard your discussion on Club Orange, too. We LOVE Club Orange! Priority boarding and tendering, and you also get to upgrade your cabin within the same category (i.e. you pay for an obstructed balcony and then upgrade to a much nicer unobstructed balcony). You book it ahead of time. We use a super helpful HAL Personal Cruise Consultant and she handles it all for us when we book!
Thank you both so much. The music venues and bars around it (especially the wake pool one) were fantastic and we were sold on it straight away. So much so, that we genuinely booked to go on HAL less than ten minutes after recording the video (while it was still exporting before uploading to UA-cam). We can't wait and with the Have It All Package included and a bit of onboard credit and shore excursion credit, it is a fantastic deal.
We will absolutely be booking Club Orange. We didn't know about the cabin upgrade (within category), what a nice perk that is. We just liked the idea of that extra choice for breakfast and dinner that's a bit quieter.
@@SuiteNatured Yay!!! Hope you have a blast. Be sure to google club orange and look at the list you’ll find of what all it includes. We found we had to ask for lots of the benefits - they don’t always just offer them up - so being familiar with what you’re supposed to get is important.
Wonderful ship tour! Can't wait to see how Queen Anne compares in terms of design and layout. My only quibble with the Nieuw Statendam design would be those large, rounded pillars in the main dining room. What on earth?! It looks like your walking down the stairs into a giant rib cage. Like something out of the American cartoon The Flintsones (Yabba Dabba Doo!) Still, I would happily sail on her tomorrow!
Thank you so much David. We can wait to see how she compares. Love the Flintstones comparison. That is all we can think of now when we see it 😂
That two person cocktail was called the Pirate’s Punch on the Eurodam during our Caribbean cruise last month. My wife says it’s the best deal on the ship!
It certainly was, and it was nearly enough by itself to persuade us to book a cruise with HAL.🤣 Completely agree on value $19 for that huge drink, absolutely bargain, and it was really tasty too.
Was considering Holland America for 2025 for Iceland so this has been very timely. It has echos of Cunard, we normally cruise Grills on Cunard, but the Club Orange restaurant did not look a match for the Grills dining experience.
You are always both so enthusiastic about your trips, which is great to watch. Can I just remind Lindsay that she said she would do a video explaining what the dress code really means by cruise line for formal vs informal?
Hi Andrea,
We haven't forgotten the formal vs informal, we will be putting it together very soon, either just before we go on our Alaska cruise at beginning of June, or when we come back.
Thank you for the lovely comment too, and we are glad the HAL tour was timely, we were persuaded straight away to booking a cruise after this and with the All In package (drinks, dining, wifi and shore exc money too) it was really good value, and we can't wait to get on it early next year.
Club Orange looked great, very different to Grills, and Cunard in full, but does have some other nice benefits included (early tender access and such), so it will obviously be our first experience of it, but we will let you know what we think.
Have a lovely weekend
Linzi & Mark
Ship will be fabulous for Alaska ❤
Nice ship but seems to be an older crowd on Holland America from what I have read. Looks like a nice enough ship but the design doesn't appeal to us. We just got off Iona yesterday which has a nice design but wasn't our crowd and was far too busy.
We have 3 Celebrity cruises booked and our first Princess and Azamara cruises booked foe next year. Looking to try Virgin and maybe a Royal one.
Good to see you in the news last week Mark championing Bradford against all the moaners. Cant wait to see Bradford Live open soon!
The ship was lovely Peter and it was definitely an older crowd left on board in Dover but when we were getting off the queue to get back on was a massive mixture from early 20s to 70s, fairly equally split. We’d guess it was a similar demographic to what we’d seen on Apex or Sun Princess.
Oh can’t wait to hear what you thing of your cruises next year especially Azamara. We hear there’s a great Royal cruise on 22nd September from Southampton next year 😂
Mark will always champion Bradford. He is so passionate about his home city and wherever we live he’ll always be a Bradfordian 🤣
We enjoyed your video. Thanks!
We have purchased Club Orange for all of our Holland cruises. They sell a limited number of spots and usually sell out fairly quickly, although sometimes you can get lucky. Highly recommend it.
Thank you Susan, we have only heard great things about Club Orange, it had sold out before we even booked our cruise, but we are top of the wait list, so fingers crossed we get to give it a try.